I do agree , it's too hard to rebel against dictatorships. It may cost our lives. However, the kind of communist dictatorships we had was too harsh compared with this Erdogan's dictatorial rule. I think Turkish people have better chances to rebel against Erdogan today.
I spent my childhood in a communist regime, and I remember well when I couldn't had even my preferred haircut because it was against the communist discipline. Let alone other things like saying your opinion in public. Everything was forbidden. You couldn't kiss even your wife in public.
Personally , I would rebel against any dictator, but certainly can't do it alone.
The best time to rebel against a dictatorship is when it isn't yet so entrenched, which is also the time when the rule isn't so extreme, i.e. as now in Erdogan's Turkey. However, when it isn't so entrenched and horrific is just when the majority of people, with family, dependents, with no training in warfare or even arms, think, well, this isn't so bad. He would never impose really terrible conditions. Why risk my life and the lives of my wife and children?
It's a situation which has played out again and again, in many, many countries. It happened in Italy too from all the stories I've been told about when Mussolini came to power. It happened without most people even being aware of what had happened or understanding its significance. Then, in the beginning people approved of a lot of the things he was doing: public works, trains running on time, improvements to infrastructure, less unemployment, more prosperity, foreign nations seeming to respect Italy more. Who cared if children had to join Fascist groups, if you had to join the party to get a job? What if some journalists, socialists, communists were exiled to remote islands or villages in the south? As for loudmouths, being beaten up and having to swallow castor oil was a small punishment. As for Ethiopians, who cared if they were getting bombed?
No, Italians weren't sent to concentration camps, and there weren't that many Matteottis who were killed, but they were dragged into a war for which they were woefully unprepared, for all Mussolini's chest beating, and shackled to an "ally" they deservedly didn't trust to fight a war that most of them didn't want. The ultimate destruction of life, cities, infrastructure, our beloved cultural monuments, our very earth was horrific. When people did want to rebel, they couldn't do it until they got help from Britain because the first thing the fascists did was to confiscate all arms.
If we don't learn from things like this, we're doomed to repeat them. What we should also learn is to cast no stones unless you've walked in those shoes.
There's a great movie about the day Hitler came to celebrate with Mussolini. It's called " A Special Day" with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, which is probably the best movie they ever made together. They went after all sorts of undesirables, even if in Italy they didn't kill them as they did in Germany. It used to be available for free on youtube, but unfortunately now you have to pay 2.99. I'm sure it's available for free somewhere, though.
